Anne Sofie von Otter and Thomas Quasthoff, Schubert Lieder with Orchestra

By WILLIAM DART

Perhaps Schubert's Erl-King is at the top of your Lieder list but you feel it cries out for just a little more than that OOS-inducing piano accompaniment.

This, then, is the CD for you, offering not one, but two Erl-Kings, sung by Anne Sofie von Otter and Thomas Quasthoff, with orchestrations by Berlioz and Reger.

There have been other recordings of Schubert's Lieder dressed up for orchestra, but they're outclassed by this new collection.

Recorded live, with only the occasional audience and orchestral shuffle, Claudio Abbado draws some delicious playing from the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, with graceful woodwind playing and the sweetest of strings.

Sophie von Otter, whose CDs range from Bach to Brian Wilson, with Bach, Chaminade and Mahler along the way, tackles Benjamin Britten's fluttery arrangement of Die Forelle.

Camp stuff this, with melodramatic tremolos surging when the water is muddied, and von Otter gives a scrumptiously arch performance.

Yet she can be disarmingly unaffected (in a sweet, anonymous arrangement of An Silvia) and relish the high drama of a song like Gruppe aus dem Tartarus, spurred on by Reger's powerful orchestration.

Musical alchemy is afoot here. Reger often gives Schubert a Late Romantic languor whereas Brahms makes a song like Memnon totally his own, and it's sung by Thomas Quasthoff at his most relaxed.

A track later, Brahms' arrangement of An Schwager Kronos is marred by some vocal strain.

To hear Quasthoff at his considerable best, and experience Schubert given the Mahler touch, Webern's arrangement of Du bist die Ruh is pure magic.

Not surprisingly, it's Quasthoff whose Erl-King induces the most terror, although Reger's arrangement is a plod alongside that of Liszt, which Australian Michael Lewis uses on his CD of the orchestrated Lieder.

Which brings me to my one regret. Why did they not include Schoenberg's arrangement of Standchen, the ideal companion for the Offenbach version offered? Why not give Quasthoff the challenge of Liszt's Der Doppelganger?

But I'm nit-picking. This CD has not been out of my car stereo for a week and, when one drives upwards of 400km over seven days, you can't have a firmer recommendation than that.

(Deutsche Grammophon 471 586)